The Guilty Blaming the Innocent[1]

Published:Vperyod, No. 15, April 20 (7), 1905.

      Published according to the text InVperyod.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 8,

      pages306-314.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor LaskerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Iskra,No. 92, contains an article “The
Zigzags of a Firm Course”, purporting to show that, in reality,Vperyodis not at all maintaining the principles and the line of
the oldIskrafirmly and consistently, but, on the contrary, is
zigzagging in the wake of the newIskra.Strictly speaking, this
allegation is too ludicrous to merit serious consideration. What strikes us
here is not the content of the newIskrapolemic, for it has no
content, but its methods. These methods are worth considering; upon
examination they reveal that there are polemics and polemics. The oldIskrawas disliked for its polemics, but no one ever thought of
calling them unprincipled. The newIskrais despised for its
polemics, because their unprincipled nature is evident to the mass of the
Party members engaged in practical work and the consistentRabocheye
Dyelo-ists, as well as to the “conciliators” headed by
Plekhanov.

Itis our intention to show the reader with what methods these polemics
operate.

Letus followIskrastep by step.Vperyodis leading
the Party towards a split, it says. This is not true. All who have studied
the Party crisis, not from old wives’ tales, but from documents, know that
it was the Minority that split the Party immediately after the Second
Congress, and that it did so clandestinely by setting up a secret
organisation.Iskrais engaging in hypocrisy now and is
misrepresenting the facts. An open split may evoke hatred, but a secret
split can evoke only contempt.Vperyodwants no secret split; that
is all there is to it.

Further,they want to charge us with contradicting

our selveson the question of autonomy and centralism. Lenin, they allege, asserted inSteps[2]that autonomy is a principle of opportunism, whereas now the Bureau of
Committees of the Majority itself is in favour of the broadest possible
autonomy for the local committees. Lenin maintained that bureaucracy stands
in the same relation to democracy as the organisational principle of
revolutionary Social-Democracy to the organisational principle of the
opportunists, whereas now the Bureau of Committees of the Majority itself
complains of bureaucracy. This is the substance of their accusation against
us. This charge too is built on downright false hood. InSteps(and, beforeSteps, in his “Letter toIskra”[3]),

Lenin cautioned; declared, reiterated, and emphasised countless times that
the phrases used against bureaucracy, for autonomy, etc., were extremely
vague, that they were open to any number of different constructions and
could be made to mean almost anything. Lenin declared hundreds of times
that, in substance, these phrases were used exclusively to veil the desire
for co-optation. These words of Lenin have now been fully borne out by the
most authentic documentary evidence. If, however, we take these words in
the sense of principle, said Lenin (ifwe take!), we shall find
the following: Bureaucracy, taken in general, may denote officialism, red
tape, formalism, paper answers. This sort of bureaucracy is evil, said
Lenin, illustrating his remarks with Martov’s well-known draft of the
Rules. It is clear to every reader who is at all conscientious that this is
the kind of bureaucracy meant by the Bureau of Committees of the Majority,
so that to accuseVperyodof contradicting itself is utter
childishness. Bureaucracy may mean infringement of the legitimate and, if
we may say so, of the “natural” rights of every opposition, a
fight waged against a minority by unfair means. Such bureaucracy is
possible, said Lenin, but there is no principle involved in it. It must be
combated by the establishment of constitutional guarantees of the rights of
minorities. Such guaranteeswere proposed clearly, frankly, and openly for the first time by the
      Stone-Hards, orVperyod-ists, as they are now called, in the
    well-known Declaration of the

			     Twenty-Two,[4]which was issued in August, seven
    months ago, without having since evoked the slightest attempt on the part of
    the new-Iskrists unequivocally to define their attitude to wards it.

Butapart from these interpretations of bureaucracy, anti-autonomy, etc., it is
possible to have interpretations based on real principles—not in the form
of any irregularities, extremes, etc., but as general principles governing the
entire organisation. This was the interpretation the Mensheviks tried to force
upon us against our will, despite our resistance. Lenin, both in his
“Letter toIskra”and inSteps, sounded
innumerable warnings against such an interpretation, which obscures the actual
concrete course that the crisis and the split have been taking. Lenin made a
straightforward appeal in his “Letter toIskra”:Drop this
nonsense, gentlemen; nine-tenths of it is squabbling! Lenin was attacked for
this, and the Central Organ tried to prove that principles were involved. Well,
if that is so, Lenin replied and theVperyod-ists always will reply,
then theprincipleof autonomy is really an opportunist principle for a
Social-Democratic organisation. If that is so, then your outcries against
bureaucracy are, in principle, of a piece with those of the Jaurèsists in
France, the Bernsteinians in Germany, and the reformists in Italy. That is how
the matter stands; and to prove it, one has only to study the Party crisis from
documents and not from the assurances of friends. Lenin had told the Bundist
Lieber at the Second Congress (see proceedings) that he would defend the
autonomy of “any”, even a Tula,

			     Committee,[5]against petty centralism; Lenin did not utter a word against the
guarantee of such autonomy in
Clause 8 of our Party Rules. Theprincipleof autonomy, however, was
never defended either by Lenin or by the Bureau of Committees of the Majority;
it was defended by Akimov, by Lieber, by the new-Iskrists. It is not difficult,
of course, to confuse the issue in themind of the unenlightened reader by tearing words from their context regardless
of the circumstances under which they were used and of their original
meaning; but newspapers that employ such methods in polemics can only expect to
be treated likeNovoye Vremya.[11]

Letus take the pamphlet by “A Worker”. What essentially is the
point thatIskraconfuses? It is that certain unprincipled people have
only let themselves in for it with their shouting about the principle of
autonomy and the like, since the only reply could be a demand for the elective
principle. Thereupon these people began to beat a retreat TheVperyod-ists, on the other hand, have always held that talking big and
flaunting the “principles” of autonomy and democracy is indecent;
but if the Rules require serious, practical amendments along the line of
democracy, as far as it is feasible under Russian conditions, let us discuss
them openly and above-board.Vperyodchallenged “A Worker”
to produce, if he could, any passage in Social-Democratic literature where the
necessity of drawing workers into the Party committees is put as clearly as
Lenin put

				 it.[6]“A Worker”, led astray by the new-Iskrists, replied
in print that he accepted the challenge; it turned out, however, that he did not
understand what accepting the challenge implied, for he did not point out any
such passage, but only threatened to “give it” to Lenin, to
“get even” with him. Naturally,Vperyodleft these terrible
threats unanswered.

Nowlet us take again the question of a single centre. Lenin, it is alleged,
said inStepsthat it was the opportunists who stood for a single
centre, whereas now this is the position of the Bureau of Committees of the
Majority. Again the same gross distortion of facts, with an eye to the
uninformed or inattentive reader. Whoever wishes to readStepswill
find (on page 28, mention of which is so studiously avoided by theIskracolumnist) that long before the first article written by a
Bolshevik against two centres (Ryadovoi’s articles inOur
Misunderstandings), Lenin had written that the idea of two centres
“took into account the temporary [mark this!] and special requirements of
the Russian Social-Democratic working-class movement in theexisting conditions of political slavery, with the initial base of operations
      for the revolutionary assault being set up abroad”. “The first
      idea,” the author ofStepsgoes on to say at once in regard to
    the idea of centralism in general, “as the one [!] matter of
    principle, had [according to the plan of the oldIskra] to pervade
    the entire Rules; the second, being a particular idea necessitated by
    temporary circumstances of place and mode of action, took the form of a
    seeming departure from centralism in the proposal to set up two
    centres”

			       (p. 28).[7]Now, we leave it to the reader to judge the
    methods of controversy employed by our Party’sNovoye Vremya! Iskrasimply tries to mislead the reader by keeping back from him the
    fact

(1)
    that Lenin pointed out long ago the temporary,particularsignificance of the idea of two centres; and

(2) that, therefore, Lenin
    never explained the opportunists’ defence of a single centre by general
    principles, but only by “temporary circumstances of place and mode of
    action”, by circumstances under which the opportunist wing of the
    Partyactuallystood for and had to stand for a single centre. That
    the oldIskrawas a bulwark in the struggle against opportunism is
    a fact. That it was the opportunist wing which constituted the minority at
    the Congress is also a fact. Why, then, should it be a matter of surprise
    that vow, when the newIskrahas turned out to be opportunist and
    when those in Russia have shown greater firmness in principle and Party
    consistency than those abroad, the “temporary circumstances”
    have changed? We should not be at all surprised now if theRabocheye
      Dyelo-ists, Martynov, the “Marsh”, and the new-Iskrists
    all took up a stand (say, at the Third Congress) for two centres, while all
    the Bolsheviks (or nearly all) stood for one centre. It would only be a
    change, in keeping with the “temporary circumstances”, in the
    methods of struggle for the same principles of revolutionary
    Social-Democracy, the principles of the oldIskrafor which Lenin
    and the Bolsheviks fought and continue to fight steadfastly. It is only
    people of theNovoye Vremyatype who can see anything
    “miraculous” in such a change. (We said that nearly all
    Bolsheviks were likely to stand for one centre. We have yet to see how
    thingswill turn out at the Third Congress. There are differences of opinion among us
as to the significance of “temporary circumstances of place and mode of
action”. We shall compare these different opinions at the Congress and
“strike a balance”.)

Thenew-Iskramethods of polemising would seem to have been made
sufficiently clear in the foregoing, so that we can now be more
brief.Iskracontends that the Bureau of Committees of the Majority
violated Party discipline by calling the Congress, in contravention of the
Rules, over the head of the Council. This is untrue, for the Council had broken
the Rules long before by its evasion of the Congress. We openly declared this in
the press quite some time ago (Orlovsky).[12]After the Mensheviks had
torn the Party asunder by a secret split and dodged the Congress on all kinds of
false pretexts, we had no practical way out of the preposterous situation other
than to convene the Congress against the will of the centres.Iskrasays that the editorial in issue No. 9 ofVperyod, “New Tasks and
New Forces”, by insisting on the necessity of considerably increasing the
number of Party organisations of every description, contradicts the spirit of
Clause I of the Rules as formulated by Lenin, who, in defending his idea at the
Congress, had urged the necessity of narrowing the concept of Party. The
objection raised byIskracan be recommended as a high-school problem
in logic to train young people in debating. The Bolsheviks have always held that
the Party should be limited to the sum-total of Party organisations and that
the number of these organisations should then be increased (see Proceedings of
the Congress andSteps, p. 40et al., particularly pp. 40-41
and

				 46).[8]The newIskraconfounds extension of the Party’sframeworkwith extension of theconceptof Party, it
confounds extension of thenumber of Party organisationswith
extension of
the Partybeyond the limits of the Party organisations!To explain
this perplexing riddle, we shall give a plain, easy illustration: let us assume
for the sake of simplicity an army consisting exclusively of men of a single arm
of the service; the manpower of the army must be narrowed down to a total of men
who have actually provedthemselves able to shoot, with none allowed to get past with general phrases or
      verbal assurances of military fitness; after that every effort must be
      made to increase the number of men who can pass the rifleman’s
      test. Aren’t you beginning to see a glimmer of light, gentlemen of the
      newIskra?

Iskrawrites, accusingVperyod:“Previously only consistent
Social-Democrats, who had to be recognised as such, were wanted; now all sorts
of elements are admitted to the holy of holies, except those that are avowedly
non-Social-Democratic.” TakeVperyod, No. 9. There you will read:
“Let all ... circles, except those that are avowedly non Social-Democratic,
either directly join the Party oralign themselves with the Party[author’s italics]. In the latter event we must not demand that they accept our
programme or that they necessarily enter into organisational relations with

			       us....”[9]Is it not clear thatIskrais simply juggling, confounding
what was “previously needed” for joining the Party with what
“is now permitted” for aligned groups? The Bolsheviks have
constantly said, and say now inVperyod, that self-enrolment in the
Party is intellectualist anarchism, that Party members must accept
“obligatory organisational relations” not in words alone. Only
people set on creating confusion can fail to understand this.Vperyod’sslogan was: Organise new forces for the new tasks into Party organisations or,
at least, into organisations aligned with the Party.Iskra’sslogan is:
“Open the doors wider!” The ones say: “Take new marksmen into your
regiments, organise those who are learning to shoot into auxiliary units.” The
others say: “Open the doors wider! Let all comers enroll themselves in the
army, any way they please!”

Asto the question of organising the revolution and organising the arming,Iskranow seeks to assure us that it has no differences withVperyod.We would ask first of all: what about Parvus? If the
differences have merely been invented by the perfidiousVperyod, why
don’t you have it out with the new-Iskrist Parvus, who cannot be suspected of
picking onIskra?You yourselves had to admit your disagreement with
Parvus and were the first to do so. Why then this game ofhide-and-seek? Essentially, the newIskraargues here againstVperyodin the very manner in whichRabocheye Dyeloused to
argue against the oldIskra.We cannot too strongly advise comrades
interested in the history oftheir ownParty to rereadRabocheye
Dyelo, particularly issue No. 10. It had been pointed out toRabocheye
Dyelothat it minimised the tasks of the political struggle. Its retort was
thatIskraunder estimated the economic struggle. It is pointed out to
the newIskrathat it minimises the tasks of organising the
revolution, the conduct of the uprising and the arming of the workers,
and the
participation of Social-Democracy in the provisional revolutionary
government. The newIskraretorts thatVperyodunderestimates
the spontaneity of revolution and insurrection, the primacy of politics over
“technique” (arming). Like tail-ender views lead to like tail-ender
conclusions. These people seek to cover up their inability to provide a guiding
slogan for the new tasks by moralising on the importance of the old tasks. Words
are torn out of
context to show that the opponent himself appreciates the importance
of the old tasks, the significance of the ABC of Social-Democracy. Of
course, comrades of the newIskra, we prize the ABC of
Social-Democracy very highly, butwe do not want to remain at the
abecedarian stage forever.Let this be plain. Neither Parvus nor the
Bureau of Committees of the Majority norVperyodwould ever think of
disputing the elementary truth that the workers themselves can, will, and must
arm, even without the organisations and the Party. But ifIskramakes
its famous “self-arming” aslogan—then, of course,
everyone smiles at the sight of such a worshipful attitude towards
spontaneity. WhenIskra, correctingParvus, discovers a new
task—worthy of the lucubrations of Krichevsky and Akimov—the task
of “arming the workers with a sense of the burning necessity to
arm”, it is only natural that it should meet with nothing but
ridicule. If at a time when the new tasks of arming the masses,
organising street
fighting, etc., have been added to the old tasks of Social-Democracy,Iskrahastens to belittle these
tasks (which we have scarcely begun to tackle) with its disparaging
sophisms about “technique” and its secondary role; if instead ofsupplementingthe old, customary, constant political tasks of the Party
with the new tasks of “technique”,Iskraargues about theseparationof the former
    from the latter, then, of course, everyone regards such arguments as a new
    variety of tail-ism.

Inconclusion, as a curiosity, we would mentionIskra’sattempt to
discard its sterling reputation as the author of the famous no-panic-mongering
theory.Iskraitself now calls this a “famous” question and
tries to prove that the Bureau of Committees of the Majority, too, advocates
“no panic mongering” when in its leaflet on the insurrection it
recommends caution in destroying property belonging to petty bourgeois (except
in cases of absolute necessity), so as not to frighten them
needlessly.[13]“Ah,”Iskraexults, “so you, too, do not want to
frighten people!”

Isn’tthis just too precious? An agreement with the Zemstvo men not to cause a
panic during a peaceful demonstration is compared to a warning against the
unwarranted destruction of property during the uprising! In the first case,
moreover, it is “demonstrations of a higher type”; in the second,
the base, contemptible “technique” of armed street fighting.... Just
one slight question, friends: why is it that every

			   Social-Democrat[10]agrees and
will agree with the advice not to frighten the petty bourgeoisie needlessly
during an uprising? And why, on the other hand, did your plan for a Zemstvo
campaign become “famous” among Social-Democrats, by your own
admission? Why did Parvus and many others from your own ranks protest against
it? Why are you yourselves to this very day ashamed to publish
this famous plan? Is it not because the advice contained in your notorious
letter was as irrelevant and ridiculous as the advice of the Bureau is
indisputably correct and generally accepted by Social-Democrats?

[1]Delayed for lack of space. —Lenin

[2]One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Geneva, May 1904. See
present. edition, Vol.7, pp. 203-425.—Ed.

[3]Iskra, November 25, 1903. See present edition, Vol. 7,
pp. 115-18.—Ed.

[4]“To the Party”. See present edition, Vol. 7,
pp. 454-61.—Ed.

[5]See present edition, Vol. 6, p. 487.—Ed.

[6]See pp. 58-59 of this volume.–Ed.—Lenin

[7]See present edition, Vol. 7, p. 242.—Ed.

[8]See present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 258-60 and 265-66.—Ed.

[9]See p. 219 of this volume.—Ed.

[10]So far only the anarchists have expressed their disagreement on this
point. They attackedVperyodin their paper, revealing an absolute
lack of understanding of the difference between a democratic and a
socialist revolution.—Lenin

[11]The reactionary newspaperNovoye Vremya (New
Times) waged against its political opponents a virulent campaign in which
it made wide use of malicious slander and other dishonest methods of controversy.

Furtherbelow, Lenin calls the MenshevikIskra“our Party’sNovoye Vremya”and the Mensheviks “people of theNovoye
Vremyatype”.

[12]The reference is to the pamphlet by Orlovsky (V. V. Vorovsky)The Council
Against the Party, published in Geneva in 1904.

[13]The leaflet on the insurrection, signed by the Bureau of Committees of
the Majority, was published in full inVperyod, No. 9, March 8
(February 23), 1905, under the title “Pressing Problems”.